How to heal trauma (It's not what you think).
Hey mama-bear,
I was on a coaching call last week and my client who has had 2 losses said, “I didn’t even think I could define that experience as trauma.”
She’s someone who thought that letting that word in, would keep that feeling of trauma there forever.
When the exact opposite ended up coming true.
She felt heard. Seen. And tears streamed from her face as we validated this traumatic experience for her.
Trauma -- and trauma from the fertility journey… loss of a pregnancy, loss of time, loss of what we thought our lives would look like… is an experience that we can heal from.
We can move through it. It doesn’t have to be our “forever story”. We simply need to learn how it works and to how to help it pass through our bodies energetically.
Which is why I interviewed Sarah Baldwin – a somatic practitioner with a specialty in trauma in this weeks podcast.
Our conversation will shed a completely new light on trauma and your nervous system. I loved every minute of it and feel changed from everything she taught me.
I asked her questions like:
What is trauma and what is unresolved trauma?
How anxiety manifests as a result of trauma.
Why your nervous system – and even your anxiety – is actually on your side.
Practical, simple exercises to heal your trauma. YES… you can heal from it!
Listen, no one in the world wants to consciously continue giving life to their trauma. But in order to let it go, we have to learn how it works and what it needs from us.
It’s time to let it go mama-bear.
All my love!
Xo Spenser
Listen to the full episode:
full episode transcript:
Welcome to the Fertile Ground podcast with Spenser Brassard. The only podcast that teaches you how to get your mind and body on board so you can get your baby on board. And now, here's your host, mind-body fertility expert and certified life coach, Spenser Brassard.
Spenser:All right guys, so I would like to introduce you to one of the first guests on the Fertile Ground podcast actually. Sarah, I am so happy to have you here. We're talking about trauma and everything that means on the fertility journey. Sarah, I wish you guys could see her beautiful face and her beautiful backdrop. We're so happy to have you here. Thank you for joining us.
Sarah:Thanks so much for having me, Spenser. It's so nice to be here with you and all your listeners. I'm so glad that we have this time together.
Spenser:Yeah, we're honoring a very, very, what can be at first, let's say delicate subject.
Sarah:Absolutely. I just want to first say, you know, when I think about parents; predominantly mothers, would you say listening?
Spenser:Well they're mothers in-waiting.
Sarah:Mother's in-waiting. So what a big deal it is to take the time for yourself to be listening to this when probably a lot of people listening are giving their time to so many other people and other things. And so I'm just really grateful that we have this time to spend together.
Spenser:Yeah. You know, I, I think that a lot of women that do tend to listen to the Fertile Ground podcast are women who do take care of a lot of other people. And, you know, they're, they're often on the, on the back burner, which is what, how we've been socially conditioned, you know? Right. No shame within that whatsoever. And so being able to hold space for yourself before becoming a mother, I think is, is really something to be proud of. I totally agree, Sarah. Awesome. Okay. So I like can't wait to dive in all full disclosure you guys, I have been through trauma. We all have, I think, to a certain extent. I mostly wanted to talk to Sarah a lot about pregnancy loss, just loss in general, at the fertility journey, the trauma just surrounding the loss of what you thought was going to be at this point. Right. And I'm wanting to like selfishly learn more about trauma just for the healing of myself and in doing so heal all of the women that are listening. To relinquish, like I said to Sarah before we started this, the shame surrounding it. So Sarah, how would you describe what trauma is?
Sarah:Yeah, trauma has become a real buzzword, which I'm so glad about, but oftentimes when things become a buzzword, they get a little funky in the misunderstanding of it. So I'm so glad to be able to explain this. Trauma isn't actually an event at all. Trauma is how an event or events overwhelm our system's capacity to process it. So in essence, it's really energy in our embodied experience that's too much and our systems don't know how to process it. It's usually too much too quick, too, too fast, as Resmaa Menakem says a lot. So too much, too quick, too fast. My system doesn't know what to do with it. And there's two things needed for trauma to process out after an event ends. So two things. One is safety. We have to have safety. The second is a mutually empathic witness. Now mutually empathic witness means someone who can be anchored in a regulated nervous system. They're regulated. The experience isn't too much for them. Meaning they've had to do their own work so that they, the pain that I'm experiencing or the overwhelm of what's happening, doesn't activate their own trauma so they can hold that space. And when that happens, trauma can begin to process through.
Really really quickly we're we're animals, we're mammals, all mammals do the same thing. So when we look at animals in the wild, let's say, an antelope running from a lion, it's experiencing trauma in that moment. That's overwhelming for its system, but let's say it's able to get away. What will the antelope then do? It will actually start to convulse and shake. If you watch them there, you're like what's happening. Are they dying? Are they having a seizure? Like, what the hell is this? Don't do that.Or go on a running JAG. And what they're doing is discharging. That's called discharging the traumatic energy. And then after they finished discharging it, they look around orient to their space, free of trauma, and then they go about their day and free of the trauma.
But for many of us, we don't have those conditions after the trauma ends. And so our systems store it, it gets stuck because their system says I don't have the safety to process this vulnerable thing. I don't have the time. I don't have the resources, the people I need. So it gets locked in time.
Spenser:Yeah. Also would come with that, I think is the limiting belief that if I let it hang out with me that it will never leave. Right? Like it's the, it's just the, push it to the side, under the rug, I never want to go there ever again, right, that kind of mind story around that.
Sarah:Yeah, well, and it's really, it's an embodied story because trauma neuroscience shows us trauma is actually not a brain experience. It's a body experience. It's an autonomic nervous system experience. It's I'm so overwhelmed, this is too much, I can't be with this, so if there's nobody to help me not be with this, I better figure out a way to not have to be with it. You know what I'll do? I'll get really busy with my work. I'll get, I will drink a little more than maybe I need to. I will watch, scroll through Instagram a little more than I have to whatever, or push it away in any way that I can because the two options are being engulfed by it or push it away. So what do we choose? Push it away. It feels really only to us.
Spenser:Yeah, you're right. And animals have that natural response to just shake it out. I know Eckhart totally talks about ducks after they have a fight, they just flap their wings. Right. You ever want to see that? I'm like, if you were seeing me right now, I'm vigorously flapping my arms looking ridiculous. I love how you described what trauma is and how it is an embodied, like it's a body experience and really an energetic emotion, you know, experience. So I think that's, that's really something that we, that feels true to me in my body. Right. And so I think we all have these experiences specifically, I'll speak for, you know, the clients, many of them have gone through pregnancy loss. I know you had mentioned too. I know there are a few who have had abortions and just loss within their families. They've lost a parent they've lost. Something along the lines of, of really honestly, the ones that I see is love some kind of loss in one way or another. So I guess what I'm trying to ask you is when is it really appropriate to label something as traumatic, because I have had many experiences and I'm just going to relay this here, because if you're feeling this, maybe you heard you started this podcast and you're like, eh, I don't know if I've been through trauma. When is it appropriate to label it a traumatic experience?
Sarah:So, so there's different types of trauma, of course. I'm going to talk for a moment though about what it looks like to have unresolved trauma. We just talked about resolved trauma. It leaves my body I'm free of it. So simple example, I get hit by a white pickup truck. I do some work to process the trauma. I see a white pickup truck. I feel fine. I'm not scared of a white pickup truck. I don't process that. I see a white pickup truck and all of a sudden they go into this freezing, I'm tensing, you can't see me, but freezing place, like all this tension inside, but I'm frozen and I'm panicked. That's unprocessed trauma. So here's some examples for people listening.
I work with lots of medical trauma. So let's say someone had a traumatic birth experience where the doctors weren't trauma informed, which is basically most MDs, unfortunately. And there was some kind of traumatic experience within, within the birth of their child. And so then what happens is I need to go have my gynaecological exam and the day before I start to notice them feeling really anxious. And it's just an exam. I could tell myself, it's just an exam, Sarah, why are you so anxious? And then I don't sleep all night. And then the morning that I go there, I have a panic attack in my car before I even get my car to go to the doctor. My reaction doesn't match the circumstances of what's happening. What it does match appropriately is to the trauma that I had in a hospital previously. I can give lots of other examples of what, what,
Spenser:Yes. Yeah. But this is a good one because you know, a lot of women have gone through treatments and I, myself, having had a loss, I definitely, 100% have white coat syndrome. I 100% do. And then two, if you have experienced loss the anxiety around those first few ultrasounds are incredibly high as well.
Sarah:Yeah. So, so here's the thing with trauma that hasn't been resolved. Here's what happens. It gets stuck in our bodies and we have this amazing threat detector in our brainstem, it's called neuroception. Every single millisecond of our lives it looks for cues of safety, danger, safety, danger, safety, danger. So I've never been harmed by a zoom screen. So my system says, Hey, that's safe. Outside by a tree. I never fell out of a tree. I say, that's safe. I experienced long-term sexual abuse as a child. So there was a time before that was resolved where nighttime rolled around and I went into terror. I mean, what's there to be scared of. I don't live in New Hampshire where I'm from. Now why is that happening? Or white coat syndrome, as you just mentioned. Our threat detector has a receptacle of past information that it looks to in a millisecond to decide if something's dangerous.
Think of it. Like a database. It has evolution in their evolutionary responses. It has generational trauma, so things passed down genetically, and it has our past experience, both good and bad. Now when trauma hasn't been resolved, it's stored in there. So what happened? My system stored, you know, like, oh, nighttime is dangerous because something bad is going to happen to you - store it. Or hospitals or unsafe places because loss happens there, or trauma happens there, or things happen against your will, that you're not choosing with your body that gets stored in there.
Spenser:Or ultrasound clinics. Right? Or fertility clinics!
Sarah:Fertility clinics, all of that gets stuck and stored. Or having your period, you know, all kinds of things.
Spenser:Totally, this is so validating. I think everyone listening is probably just going to feel so heard.
Sarah:Because if there's one thing I tell people all the time is that you make sense. Everything happening to us is making sense and it's actually happening for us. I know it causes so much. But why is it happening? It's happening because this threat detector and our beautiful, what's called our autonomic nervous system, is saying never again am I going to let you not be self protected against something that could harm. Self protection is dysregulation. They're the same, the same exact thing.
Spenser:So who's saying that to you, you say you're your body, a system within your body is saying never again? Or is that you saying that to yourself?
Sarah:No, that is not you. There's no cognitive component to this. So trauma is not a cognitive. It's not happening in our prefrontal cortex. The latest neuroscience actually shows us is our state creates our story. So where we are in our nervous system is directly indicative of the thoughts we have. If I'm anxious, I mean, I am getting off topic here, but
Spenser:No, this is fabulous.
Sarah:If I'm having anxiety in my body. This is a result of my sympathetic nervous system. And if I'm in, then I'll go into this a little more clearly in a second. But if I'm here where this is where anxiety worry, frustration, fear, terror, rage, lives. This is our first line of defense. So when that, when that threat detector just quickly back to the threat detector in our brainstem, it's, it's the first line. And it says, is that safe or dangerous, safe or dangerous? It says, oh, look a fertility clinic. What do I know about that? Quickly looks to the database. Oh, you were so hopeful, you spent all this money, all of this time, and the treatment didn't work or you weren't able to freeze any eggs after all, whatever. None of it worked or it did work and then I lost my child. What is the, your self protective circuit says that the threat detector immediately says that's not safe, that's dangerous. And then it has some teams to call upon. It's like who, who would be the best team to call upon for protection? We have three teams to call upon. First is our sympathetic nervous system.
This is often referred to as fight or flight, but it's not really fight or flight. It's mobility. So this is our system saying this isn't life-threatening, but it's dangerous, which means I think we can do something about it. It would be like if we were like hunting and gathering and the lion is an eighth of a mile away, it's not that close. So I might be able to actually run away from this thing. So we will call upon our sympathetic nervous system. Now, if the lion was 20 feet away, like I'm not gonna, that's not a good choice. I'm not going to probably be able to fight this lion or run away from it. So the threat detector would say, no, you guys aren't going to be able to help team sympathetic.
You know, who will though team dorsal? Our dorsal vagal complex is our state of immobility. And this is where we go when there's imminent danger. So we go here for two reasons. One, because our system is saying, there's no way out of this. So I love you so much, this is what our autonomic nervous system is saying, that I actually have the capacity for you to leave your body. So you don't have to feel the pain that's going to happen to you. You know, every mammal has this ability. So the antelope that does get eaten, it 's system can give it such unconditional love that it says, "my darling, you can leave your body so you don't have to feel this happening to you." And we have that ability. And so when something is life-threatening, that's what happens.
And what it's like to be here is this is where apathy, hopelessness feeling numb. I'm not really here, depression, dissociation, meaning I don't feel like I'm in my body at all. It feels out of body. I don't even remember what happened in that hospital. I feels like it was a days or a dream. Those are our self-protective states. And so that threat detector, it says, all right, what was the right team to bring in? When I went into that fertility clinic before? Oh, that dorsal shutdown team leave your body because this is way too overwhelming. Cool. Let's bring that team online again. And we get into our car and we're like, whoa, I feel out of it, like I can't really even drive there. What's happening or I get there and the doctor's talking to me and I just feel like, wait a minute, am I here? Are they here? What's happening? Which is our system anticipating the same trauma happening again?
Spenser:Yeah. And where would anxiety live inside of that? Inside of those responses?
Sarah:Our sympathetic nervous system. This array of being in this sympathetic nervous system, and this is mobilization. So the overarching experience here is I must do something. If we're having thoughts, our story matches our state. So the state or where I am in my nervous system is like, if it's a gas fireplace, that's the gas, and then the thoughts are like logs that come on, but they're always going to match. So if I'm in this place of mobility, I have to do something. Now this is where worry, anxiety, frustration, fear, terror, rage, agitation, nervousness, all lives. The thoughts are going to be racing thoughts about how it's not going to work out. And if I don't do all the research or have all the information or make sure that I ask them a million questions.
Spenser:Or prepare for the worst.
Sarah:Or prepare for the worst. Or catastrophize it. Then I know how to prepare against it. And at least maybe I can,prepare myself so nothing happens. That's all our sympathetic nervous system. There's lots of tension in our body when we're here. Our thoughts will be racing, tunnel vision. Like I can't focus on anything else. Tension we might notice, like, why is my jaw hurting so bad? Why am I starting to get migraines? Why are my hormones off?
Spenser:My guts? What about gut?
Sarah:Oh, of course. Gut issues. Because when we're theoretically fighting, running from a lion. Do I really need immune function? Do I need hormone balance? Do I need to digest my lunch? No way. I don't need to do any of those things, I need to survive. So our systems will put overly so much adrenaline, so much cortisol all to help our systems fight against the threat that they're perceiving.
Spenser:Yeah. And I guess one, one thing I love about what you say about it, Sarah is you look to the nervous system and its response with such compassion. Like it's not the enemy. Right. And I think maybe potentially, you know, if you're listening, you're going, Ugh, like another thing wrong with me. Right. And that's not what at all. We're trying to, I think the message we're trying to get across, we're trying to get it across how beautifully designed our bodies.
Sarah:That's right. I work in the mental health field, but I, what I don't like about it is there, so coming from a serious complex survivor, this is coming from a serious complex survivor. I got such a message. Like there's something wrong with me. I'm dysfunctional. I'm broken. Nobody explained to me what the hell was actually happening, because most of the therapists I worked with didn't know what was happening to me. But research, neuroscience actually shows us there is nothing wrong with anyone's nervous system. Not even for one moment. We are perfectly working intricate systems that will do anything to keep us alive. That's how much our systems love us. And when we can start having a different orientation to if I'm having panic or worry or anxiety, or I'm feeling frustrated, or I need to control everything, or I'm starting to feel hopeless and shut down and numb and not here, all of those are simply signs that my system is trying to protect me.
And if we can change, instead of saying, I need this to go away. The thing is about dysregulation because that's what this is protection, dysregulation, same thing. We can't talk our way out of it. And I'm sure there's people listening who have you had loved ones say, oh honey, there's nothing, you know, there's nothing to worry about this doctor's so great. And look at their history and you know, it's, what are the odds of this happening? You know, again, or, or they just told you that your levels are so normal and yeah, sure. People can, can say a lot of rational things. Does it actually make you calmer? No. Why? Because our autonomic nervous system does not understand a verbal language because it doesn't live in our prefrontal cortex. It's sub-cortical, so it would be like, I don't speak Mandarin. It would be like someone speaking Mandarin to me and me trying to understand it. I can't understand it, or it would be like telling my wall, it should move five inches. It can't understand anything I say, but our bodies do understand what's called a somatic language.
It's the only language they understand. And so we have to start showing, not telling our nervous systems that we're safe. That's the only way to regulate our nervous system. It is not biologically, scientifically possible to talk our way into regulation.
Spenser:Yeah, safety's a big word with me and my crew, my group and my girls and my mama bears listening to this, like this that's a big one. Like, you know, comfort. Safety is something that, you know, they're really craving. I think also too, just before we go, I think what's so cool. What you said. And I read this in a book too last week is just that from, what's her name? Jill Bolte Taylor who had the stroke in the right side of her brain or the left side of her brain; Stroke of Insight.
Sarah:Oh, I know who you're talking about. And it has a book, right?
Spenser:Yes. Yeah. It's called Stroke of Insight. Yeah. But basically she said that, the book , it's brilliant, it is really, really good, but she said that when something happens, we process it emotionally first. And it's kind of interesting because if you're, if you've become, you know, if you're in life coaching or something, we always think we interpret it with our thoughts first, or that's kind of what we've been taught, but no, like there, we're learning more and more that actually the interpretation first begins inside of the emotion, inside of our emotions, inside of our body. And then we interpret that with our thoughts and it sounds like that's what you're saying as well. Right.
Sarah:Yeah, that that's what neuroscience tells us. That cognition is built. That's the last thing that happens. We're writing we're meaning-making creatures, but we make meaning last. So I have an embodied experience. Then later I make meaning of it. Oh, it's because it must've been my fault. Wrong was my body.
Spenser:Yes. That is a very popular one amongst the women listening. Yes, of course. So like the loss was my fault. So that is most common, right. We're not getting pregnant. That's my fault.
Sarah:That's right. And well, that message alone is, is a part of a patriarchal message, of course. It's a woman's fault that pregnancy is not happening. And when we experience trauma, one of two things happen: we internalize or externalize. Internalization is where shame comes. That it is. So a trauma happens. I'm not separate from the trauma. It is me. So it's my fault. It's my fault. That's that's the experience of internalization and where shame grows. Externalization is it's your fault and you made this happen and I'm going to, and, and much more complex than what I just said. It's also, I'm going to, the pain that I feel I'm going to put on someone else. Someone hurt me. I abused my partner because I was hurt as a child. That's externalization of trauma. A lot of your listeners are internalizing their trauma and, and where, where there's something wrong with me, or I made this happen, or something innately wrong with my body.
Spenser:Right. And so how would you flip the script on that?
Sarah:Hmm. Well, again, not from cognition ever. I mean I'd love to also give maybe a couple of tools for folks to regulate, especially people going into hospitals. I think that's really important. And can give just a couple simple regulating tools, but when it comes to that my body did me wrong in some way.
We want to come back into a healthy relationship with our body, which is going to actually help our fertility process, of course. Just start, you know, this could be with someone who says, I work with a lot of people who've been sexually abused and they say, things like, why did my body have that response? Meaning there, there may have been parts of this horrible experience that also, because it's just a part of our, our genitalia, that it was pleasurable, even though this was horrible and traumatic. So what's wrong with me that my body responded this way or that, you know, however, I didn't fight back why?
So I, I take on ownership of it. So part of this is how do I begin to befriend, befriend my body again? And we want to start with tolerable steps and that might be something like, can I in an embodied way have gratitude for the fact that my lungs take in air without me asking them to. And I don't mean that from a cognitive place, I guess I could say can I really feel that?
Spenser:There's a big difference. And this is where this is a whole point. You know, the mind body connection is, you know, and, and really what I, what I teach is. We can analyze the shit out of anything as much as you want, but until you feel it within you, to your core, you will analyze and analyze and analyze for a lot longer than you want to be doing it. Right. You run in circles when you analyze, and research, and hang out in the left logical side of your brain without allowing your body to root you in the now to process what you've been through.
Sarah:Yeah. And it makes sense like that we would want to say like, oh, let's try to learn more.
Spenser:Oh my gosh, Sarah, that is a majority of the listeners. I just need to learn more, to learn more. I need to know what hormones, what I can eat, what I can do, what I can think.
Sarah:Yeah. And here's the truth. This is coming from someone with serious chronic guilt, like debilitating chronic illness, Crohn’s & Colitis, all kinds of things that you know, are told are not curable. And I don't have any symptoms of those things now is that the best medicine for our bodies is regulation. Here's why every single moment that I am able to regulate my nervous system. Just a little bit, just a little more in the here and now, what happens is all of the energy that has been going towards survival can now go to the rightful places that it supposed to be. Meaning all the energy that was taken from my liver function, because do I really need my liver function perfectly if I'm trying to survive? No way, so that can go back to my liver functioning now. Now when we're in sympathetic all of our blood flow goes to our arms and legs.
And what do we need? I've done fertility treatments myself. So I know a lot about this too. So what do we need for fertility? We need lots of blood flow to our ovaries and to our uterus. What happens when we're in our sympathetic. It's going to say, I'm going to take some of that blood flow because I'm trying to save your life from a lion. Not because it doesn't want us to get pregnant, but because it's saying, well, show me there's no danger and then the blood can go back to where it supposed to go. And for anyone listening, I don't want this to bring in more anxiety. I remember a doctor told me you need to sleep. Sleep is the most important thing. When someone tells you that are you going to sleep well? Probably not.
Spenser:Just relax. That's one I got a lot too.
Sarah:But what I want you to think about is how can I begin building throughout my day, a toolbox of things that support me to be more present. These are called regulating resources or neural exercise. This is like lifting weights. If I do a rep, every time I do that, I strengthen my nervous system's capacity to regulate. So would it be okay if I just give a couple, therapeutic ones?
Spenser:Are you kidding me? Yes, please.
Sarah:Here are a couple that can help everybody. The first is something that I would only want everyone to do when you're in this, your sympathetic nervous system. So this is where, remember, I have all this energy my body and I am nervous and worried and researching everything. How do I control everything? Like we have to put this in at this time, we have to get this time. We have to do this. And to my spouse, like, no, you can't do that, particularly if they're aware that product.
So that's all sympathetic nervous system, anxiety, worry, frustration, fear, terror, rage, all of them. When we're there, there's a certain breathing cycle we can do that brings in more of our parasympathetic nervous system. And you don't need to know all the science behind it. But what we're trying to do is discharge out some of that energy. So why don't we do a breathing cycle that has shorter inhalations and longer exhalations. It helps to do that. So a simple breathing cycle is inhaling through your nose for four seconds. Holding your breath for seven seconds and then exhaling through your mouth for eight seconds. So longest exhale and like you're blowing out a candle. And do that three times three cycle and then stop and rest and notice. Anytime we do any regulating resource we want to after rest and notice because what's happening is all of this information in my body is being sent up to my brain. 80% of information is sub-cortical meaning it lives in our bodies.
Only 20% is, is coming down from our brains. So we want to rest and notice. And what you probably notice is. I feel a little less like fidgety. I just took a deeper breath. Oh, I feel a little bit more here. The thoughts are racing a little less. That's what we're looking for. We're not looking for. Wow. I just am so happy and elated now. No, we're not looking for that.
Spenser:That's the perfectionist fantasy.
Sarah:What we're looking for is the shift in that neural exercise. Am I any more here, do I feel any more present?
Spenser:Or anymore grounded, you know?
Sarah:Absolutely. So am I any more in my body? So that's, that's one to use when you're in that sympathetic place. So inhale through for four hold for seven and exhale for eight, another one that's really helpful. Actually, I can't do what I, folks can look at my Instagram. I have lots of videos on regulating, but tapping is a great resource. Another one is making the sound Voo - V O O. Now this particular vibration helps to release our Vagus nerve and in the, so when we're in dysregulation our vagus nerve is tightening up.
And in this vibrational sound helps to release it. And what that does is queues up to our brain. Hey, we thought there was a danger. There's not actually a danger and that's what's happening when we're regulating our nervous systems.
Spenser:Yeah. That's what I was going to ask. I was going to say K, so instead of just doing it,
Sarah:Yeah.
Spenser:What I love so much, so much about what we said at the beginning of this podcast is how can I compassionately communicate with my body. So, so when you notice that your body is in response to something happening, what could be like an intention that you have in that moment? What would you, what would you craft up?
Sarah:Well, again, I want to always get out of cognition. I know that we're pulled into that a lot, but it's not gonna actually fix anything. And in fact,
Spenser:Well, I think it more just like have a motivator instead of just like checking something off the to-do list. What are we really saying to our bodies? If we were to choose. Something so simple like you mentioned.
Sarah:Yeah. So, so one, it's always important to remember it. There's only two reasons why we're ever dysregulated only two. Okay, fine. There's a real threat in front of me. More often than not, that's not what it is. It's perceived threat, it goes back to that threat detector. So if anyone's dysregulated, I want you to look around and say, is there anything dangerous right here right now? And if not, oh, there's a perceived threat. That means my precious loving threat detector is being reminded of something that was dangerous and it's calling upon whichever team of my nervous, autonomic nervous system to protect me. So if I'm feeling panic right now, but there isn't actually a threat here it means my system is perceiving that based on something that was dangerous. So loving system. Thank you for coming to my aid. And here's my job. Now, my job is to show you that, that threats not actually here right now. I know you can't understand that verbally because you don't understand the cognitive language. So let me show you in a way that you understand. Let's do this breathing exercise that can signal the message to you that we're safe or let's do this sound that I just mentioned. That's going to signal that we're safe and let me show you that we are, and then when we show it, it says, oh, oh, you're right. Okay. Coast is clear.
You're welcome. You're welcome to now come into regulation. That's the whole point of why we're doing any kind of regulation work, because we want to show these parts that we are safe, but we want to change our orientation to it instead of like, holy shit. I'm anxious again. I have to not be anxious cause I have to be relaxed.
Spenser:Exactly, exactly. Yep. What about when you are pregnant or newly pregnant and you've been through loss and you don't know what's going on inside of your body and your anxiety is saying, well, there could be a threat or, well, maybe there's something wrong. And I just don't know. Right. So you don't know if you can tell if it's perceived or reality at that point.
Sarah:So, so whenever we're in dysregulation, before we look at any of those things, cause see those thoughts you just mentioned are evocative of our sympathetic nervous systems. Not of our regulated state.
Spenser:But they're also objections to doing those exercises.
Sarah:Yes. So a simple tool. I do somatic thought work as well. So a simple tool is just simply noticing the thought and not addressing it. We don't want to do that because we can't, when we're dysregulated, I like to think of our thoughts as lawyers. So in our sympathetic nervous,
Spenser:I love it. That is good, Sarah. That is good.
Sarah:Nothing wrong with a community college, but like this lawyer went to Oxford and has been in practice for 50 years and was like the best. So here's the thing. Okay. I'm the jury member. The lawyer comes in. If I'm in sympathetic, my sympathetic nervous system. Guess what courtroom I'm in. I'm in the sympathetic courtroom. I'm going to be their sympathetic lawyer. What is their job? To keep you in that courtroom.Why? Because they think there's a lion or a threat. They don't want you out of that courtroom. They're trying to protect you. They want to save your life. So they're going to tell you a million reasons why you have to stay here and why you're not going to be okay. And as a jury member, I'm not a lawyer. If I tried to argue with a lawyer and I said something like, well, I don't know lawyer, who's very good at this job, I think that maybe could be different. They'll bulldoze me. So we don't want to do any cognitive work when I'm in the sympathetic courtroom or dysregulated.
What I want to do is say, Hey lawyer, I see you. I see you, I see where I am. This is not me. It's you. And so I have clients get a visual on what this lawyer looks like. This is called healthy differentiation in the therapeutic world. Can I see what they look like? And then a simple prompt. I'm noticing the thought that, or I'm noticing the lawyer is saying this, and then what's my job to get the hell out of the sympathetic courtroom, because here's the thing, the sympathetic lawyer can not be in what's called, our state of regulation is called our ventral vagal complex. This is when we're present this, the sympathetic lawyer, can't be there only the ventral lawyer can, who is basing everything on the here and now in reality of what's happening. So the only way out of that sympathetic courtroom is through regulation or by the way, the dorsal courtroom.
There's another lawyer there. That's where hopelessness, regret, apathy, depression all lives, that lawyer is very good as well, but they talk slower. So they say things like it's never going to change. You'll never be a mom. It's never going to happen, never going to happen for you. And you know, your partner's probably going to leave. Probably find someone who they can have a child with. And you're how are you even going to be friends with all your friends still? Because they all have children. You can't be around that. You're just going to have to go off by yourself. And what's even the point of anything. That's a different lawyer. Can you hear the difference? They're very different.
Spenser:I can picture… I can see all of my lawyers, they're all men. And like the sympathetic courtroom lawyer was like this old white guy. Yeah, no, it's, that is such a good image to misidentify them as you.
Sarah:That's right. And so here's all we in, by the way, they say things logical, like that seem logical. They could convince you of anything. So I want you to ask yourself, everybody, am I in presence, which is my ventral vagal complex. When I'm in presence, here's the thing, no matter what happens in life, I know it's all gonna be okay. Whatever arises. I'm going to be okay in it. It's all going to be okay. I'm present. I'm safe to connect with myself, with others. I feel really here, really grounded. That's ventral. I'm going to be okay. My body's able, I'm capable. The overarching experience is I can. That's so different than sympathetic, and then that's really different from dorsal.
So when I asked clients in those three states where am I? Am I present, am I in a sympathetic place? Am I in the dorsal place? And then ask yourself, which lawyer is present, it's going to be obvious. If I'm in sympathetic, it's a sympathetic lawyer. And I want you to ask yourself what the hell is that lawyer been telling me?
And you're going to see yourself. Oh my gosh, I've been listening. And here's what happens when I listen to the lawyer, I get more activated. The more I listen, the more activated I get, that's their job to keep us protected. So we want to say, I see you lawyer. You can go over to the side. You don't have to go away and be the elf on the shelf.
Just go, go have lunch. Now I'm going to get out of this freaking courtroom. The only way out regulation. Another simple regulating tool is orienting. That means looking around my environment and supporting it to come help me come into the here. But it means being really present because I can look around my room and see colors like white, red, yellow.
I didn't see that at all. It wasn't like driving home in your neighborhood. You can do it without really being present for it. But I want you to use all your senses. So it might be looking at a scratch on a wall. And like what color gray is that scratch or smelling an essential oil? What is it like to really smell it. Touch something or look at a detail, all of which helps support our system to show us. No, I'm actually here. I'm not in the hospital from two years ago when that horrible thing happened. I'm right here. And in this moment, I'm okay. So that that's another regulating tool. Just really quickly with that sound. Cause it's such a supportive tool, it comes from Peter Levine's work, and this is helpful in both states. We wanna, he he's like, it's very weird sound. A lot of somatic work is kind of strange. Listen, I do it at the line of the bank and then the line goes away. So if you ever want to make a line go away, like, it's weird, but when you make this sound, we want to make it into our viscera or our gut space.
So it sounds a little like a fog or deeper than my speaking voice. I'm going to just do it really quick, but you can do it three times and then rest and notice. Sounds like this. So I'm feeling that into my gut. Don't want, doesn't want to be, I don't want it up in my chest because my whole point where my biggest nerve lives or the endings of it is in my gut. So I want to begin allowing those, that signal or the message to go to my system. Like, Hey coast is clear, we're safe.
So that's another regulating tool. Or engaging in anything that registers as good as good for you. Some of us that might be like, I'm going to go put my feet in the grass and I'm just going to feel what the soil feels like below it. Is it cold? Is it warm. I'm going to go for a walk. I'm going to do some exercise. I'm going to listen to music that attunes with my nervous system. So there's lots of things that we can do to, to regulate, but that's what we want to focus on. Every single moment of regulation again is medicine for my body.
Spenser:And for the trauma.
Sarah:Absolutely. It helps to process trauma. It helps to reshape our nervous systems. It helps to support us to be, what's called the active operator of our nervous systems, which means no matter what outside circumstances happen. I know this instrument so well that I know where I am in it. And I know how to bring myself into regulation. That's our goal.
Spenser:I love it. And I'm asking this question because I know that this is what people are thinking.
Sarah: I'd love to know, like in, I'm going to be really logical here. How much time does it take to heal from trauma or to like, because in the fertility world there's, there's a time thing and people want to learn about how much time it does it take. Or what perspective do we want to give to that voice that's saying, well, how much time is this going to take? Well, how long is this going to take? Will I ever heal? Will I ever get to that point?
And I get that question, of course, everyday and the truth is that it's, it's too complex of a question to actually, I can't say like six months, because I have to know someone's full history. What happened to you in your attachment when you were two years old? What happened to you when your four? But, you know, I have to know someone's whole history to get a sense of that. And for those of you that have been in psychodynamic therapy or talk therapy for a long time, and maybe you spent like, I did a decade in that, and you haven't seen a lot of results, somatic work is entirely different.
Here's how I liken it. Psychodynamic therapy, which has benefits. It's like talking about a meal. I could tell somebody about a great meal or, you know, yeah. A great meal for hours. I could tell you all about it over and over and over in the ingredients and the texture and all of that. And you might get a sense of it, but somatic work is eating the meal and you eat the meal and like, oh, this is what the meal is.
I thought I knew the meal was. No, I didn't. This is, this is the meal. And we're having an embodied experience in the here and now. So every single time that we regulate our nervous systems, it changes.
Spenser:Oh, I love that. See, that's, that's the motivation because sometimes something is so simple it's complicated. I always say, especially in the fertility world when you're like, okay, breathing... And then they, for some reason when you're on the fertility journey, like I was, I wanted to learn the most complicated recipe so that at the end I could feel worthy of what I was to receive at the end of this, but I love what you said every time. Would you, could you repeat that again? Every time you self-regulate.
Sarah:Every time or co-regulate cause there's two ways to regulate alone where we thought there's, um, every time we either self regulate or co-regulate, it is reshaping our nervous systems in the here and now that is actually happening. It's not like do this enough and in three years you'll be better.
Spenser:So important for these women to hear.
Sarah:Yeah, this is happening now. You get the benefits now and so much so on a, on an embodied level, everything in our body. So when we are just dysregulated, energy is going to survival. If I can come back into the, if someone says to me that listens to this podcast and you say after, yeah, I did one of those tools and I just felt a little better. I didn't feel great, I feel a little better. That is your system healing. What just happened there is that energy was able to go back to organ function, your immune system, blood flow, your reproductive organs. In that moment, that is medicine for your body it's happening now.
And so what I would invite folks to do is say, okay, can I, in my day, can I just put aside, put some reminders in my phone? This is what I do with clients. And maybe I put six reminders with a nice tone, tone, not something that's activating for you. Like the sound of birds. It goes off and it says like, Hey, my love do something to regulate. Just something is, or it could say which lawyer is present or are you regulated or protected? If you're protected, what can you do to come back here a little bit more? And when you do that and sprinkle these things in you're reshaping your nervous system, you are bringing calm regulation to your system. You are helping your body to be able to receive. This child that you're having. And so it's not like I have to do this now, and then I'm in a year I can do this thing I want to do. It's a process that's happening. Just like eating a meal and digesting it.
Spenser:And you don't work out once. And then like two weeks from then you don't, you're not like, well, you know, it's, this is something that, and I think which is why it's wonderful to be a part of, have to have people like you and me, if I will say so myself, to teach that consistency and the importance of continuing to do that work. And I think what's beautiful to bring this just full circle is, you know, the benefits of this is safety. It's feeling safe and at home inside of your body and baby or not, that is, that is a gift in and of itself that a woman with five kids would love to feel. And like you said, you can give that to yourself right now.
Sarah:Absolutely. And that's what trauma healing is. It's really not becoming anything it's coming home to who you've always been and feeling safe to be in our bodies, which means we're then safe to be in the world.
Spenser:Oh, my God. So good. Sarah, how can people work with you? How can they hear about you?
Sarah:You can find me more about you. Sarah, S A R A H B coaching and I teach on there almost every day and there's lots of videos people can follow. I have small group programs and courses, and you'll find all that information on my Instagram. Or you can go to SarahBaldwincoaching.com.
Spenser:Beautiful. Sarah, thank you so much. This was so much fun for me like it, and, and I believe so much in everything you're saying, and I know it will resonate so strongly for all the women that are listening. It was an absolute pleasure to connect with you with you all being all the way in LA andI am in Canada.
Sarah:So wonderful to be here with you and all the amazing, powerful, brave, strong, extraordinary, and broken women watching and listening and not watching, listening.
Spenser:Isn't it amazing that they get to learn these tools before having a child, because as a new mom, like those self-regulating tools, what they say is that that's what you teach your child. Once you, once you can do it for yourself, that is what you teach your child to self-regulate because when they're born, they can't, they don't know exactly know how to regulate. Right. So you can again, instil this beautiful work into a, when your child is ready to come here.
Sarah:That's right. That's exactly right.
Spenser:Yeah. Beautiful. Thank you so much, Sarah.
Sarah:Thank you for having me.
Thanks for tuning in. If you want to fast track your mind-body connection, you can sign up for free fertility mindset trainings at spenserbrassard.com.